First we had to add reinforced armor on the bumpers and go short tracking! Then we put on the scuba gear to go racing in a monsoon! Finally on Tuesday night, the GT3 crew got to bust out the big guns and go for raw speed!!! What better place to open them up to test the final gear than at Imola!
The battle for the Pole was insanely tight!
Tyler McIntosh (MacAttack0922) grabbed his 2nd pole of the year, barely edging out
Patricio Campos (Pitricio_Guitar) by a mere .087 seconds.
Kyle Spencer (KDawgHonda777) swapped roles around this week and beat out
Charles Sumner (Hootius) for the inside of Row 2.
Kyle Ely (Rocksson2Kyle) rounded out the Top 5 for qualifying for his best qualifying effort in the PRL ApCS league!
Tyler and
Patricio spent no-time battling for the lead. With both drivers being so equal, it did not take long for some mixing up to happen.
Patricio got around
Tyler early, and as
Tyler was trying to make a pass back to take the lead, the first bit of contact happened.
Tyler drove a little too hard into Turn 14 on Lap 3 and bumped
Patricio into the gravel. As sportsmanship goes in PRL,
Tyler waited for
Patricio to gather it up, and then continued racing on as we all enjoy seeing. As that was unfolding, the race unfortunately went south for one of our top qualifiers rather quickly.
Kyle E. was a little too anxious off of the line, and had to serve a Stop and Go penalty for the infraction.
Kyle E. had a fast car to possibly be able to make up for serving 1 penalty like that, however the game had other plans. When
Kyle E. went in to serve the penalty, the game gave him a full pit stop instead. Half-way through the when
Kyle E. wanted to pit for tires, the game spit him back out off of pit lane to serve his penalty. That required a 3rd stop unfortunately for
Kyle E., but he was able to keep it in the Top 10. Back to the front, before the pits stops, we would have another bit of contact that would end up having an impact on the finish of this race.
Patricio would get slowed drastically by a lapped car, which opened a window for
Tyler to jump on the inside of Turn 8 when
Patricio was not expecting. The contact did not spin either driver, but lead to the main deciding factor of the race.
Tyler decided to early pit to try to use the fresh tires to get around
Patricio when he would pit later, however that early stop put
Tyler in traffic which cost him too much time and would give
Patricio the room to focus on the track and take the car to victory lane for the 3rd time this season. While all of this was happening,
Kyle S. drove a great and consistent race, and would secure 2nd place rather comfortably over 3rd place when
Tyler would fall back due to receiving damage trying to overtake a lapped car.
Charles and
Vince Nadal (TSpottr723) would also get around
Tyler during his extra pit stop, and had a war of attrition battling for the final podium spot. Both drivers would have driver error spins and had to battle their own vehicles as much as battling each other, but in the end
Charles was able to bring home his 2nd podium in a row.
Vince was able to bring home 4th by the slimmest of margins, barely edging out
Tyler by .081 secs!!! Another call out of the race goes to our Hard-Charger of the week,
Dallas Johnson (Porq_Chopz).
Dallas qualified 12th, but ran a smooth race and jumped up 5 positions to bring his Mercedes home in 7th place, great run! Also shout out to
Mark Miller (Fifi_LD) and
Brian Mosser (BrianMosser88) on their best finishes of this season.
The top 10 finishing order was:
1st –
Patricio Campos (Pitricio_Guitar) – 12th career win and a perfect 3 for 3 this Season
2nd –
Kyle Spencer (KDawgHonda777) – 3 for 3 on podium finishes this Season
3rd –
Charles Sumner (Hootius) – 2nd podium of the Season
4th –
Vince Nadal (TSpottr723) – 3rd Top 5 of the Season
5th –
Tyler McIntosh (MacAttack0922) – 2nd Top 5 of the Season
6th –
Mark Miller (Fifi_LD) – 2nd Top 10 of the Season
7th –
Dallas Johnson (Porq_Chopz) – 2nd Top 10 of the Season
8th –
Brian Mosser (BrianMosser88) – 1st Top 10 of the Season
9th –
Drayton Simpson (Dray_SS_81) – 2nd Top 10 of the Season
10th –
Kyle Ely (Rocckson2Kyle) – 2nd Top 10 of the Season
In the Driver’s battle,
Patricio Campos (Pitricio_Guitar) added a few more points and now owns an 11 point lead on
Kyle Spencer (KDawgHonda777), with
Charles Sumner (Hootius) falling to 6 pts behind Kyle S. in 3rd place. The Team battle saw
Cromo Ramrod’s (
Patricio and
Charles) lead jump up to 27 points over
Attack Racing (
Tyler and
Kyle S.). The Team battle for 3rd opened up a little bit after
Vin Rin Racing’s (
Vince and
Mark M.) strong performances at Imola, opening up a 17 point lead over
Speed Syndicate (
Drayton and
Mark K.).
Next week, the crew will be fighting for space at the very fun, but very tight and challenging course at Laguna Seca! Rumor has it too that we might have a special broadcaster for that race.
Hootius’ Twitch handle is OldManHoot.
Rocckson2Kyle’s Twitch handle is Klutchion.
Bubba18’s Twitch handle is Bubba1889.
KDawgHonda777 is also his Twitch handle.
